I've been relentlessly researching for a new build, with the case being the biggest focus, as I really like to find the most compact possible case for my needs for any build... it seems pointless if I know exactly what a build will be used for and what limited upgrade path it will likely require, to have too much wasted void inside the case.Now, I very-long-ago made the decision that, seeing as the only time I ever use optical media (aside from blurays on my PS3) is to install an operating system, the time had most certainly arrived where one single, tiny, self-powered external slim bluray-writer would be more than sufficient for any optical media use I would need to engage in, on any number of computers.

So, on that note, and going on the reckless assumption that I'm probably not alone, I just wanted to take an aside from my search to rant about 5.25" drive bays.Why do 99% of cases still feature them, and in the vast majority of cases, more than one?

For the tiny tiny miniscule fraction of case designs that have either dared to limit themselves to a single slim optical bay, or (*shock horror!*) ditch them entirely, every review I read seems to regard this as a "bold" and often "risky" move... "people don't use optical media much any more, but is it too soon?" they all ask.I would think, yes, it's too soon to drop them from *ALL* case designs in a manufacturers entire lineup, *that* would be a bold, risky move. Dropping them for one or two case designs sounds like finally ushering in the depreciation of a space-wasting hold-over from a bygone age.

There are so many cases that give over a big wasted chunk of nothing to 3-4 optical drive bays... cases that really only justify being the size they are on the presumption that they're providing room to expand. Why on earth are manufacturers so reluctant to take the plunge then, ditch the optical bays completely, stick a neat tidy row of 8x3.5" bays right up the front (maybe even hotswap), with a couple of 2.5" bays tucked away somewhere, and instantly cover the requirements of all home-servers with a fraction of the wasted space?

One or two seem to be testing the waters, but even the few that do seem like half-measures... like nobody wants to commit even a single case design to actually doing it properly.

Out of all of them, I keep homing in on Silverstone as the most gutsy... they seem to be the only manufacturer out there who will actually try to provide tailored solutions for particular types of build, rather than trying to cover several niches with a single design.

I know exactly what you mean. I did NOT want a 5.25 device bay in my new build since I have not used one in years. I went with the Fractal Design Node 304 and could not be happier for what I got. Cable management is a nightmare/impossible but other than that it was a dream for a new build.

Along with the no 5.25 I wanted a small, subtle case like a mini version of a Antec P180.

Ah yes, Fractal Design seem to be taking things in some interesting directions too. I love their front-bezel designs too... they really have some class.

That Node 304 would have been perfect for one build I'm considering... except that it threw up another general industry annoyance - nobody makes any modern Mini-DTX motherboards, and 1 expansion slot doesn't fit with my requirements. There are so many ITX cases out now that have two expansion slots, you'd think motherboard manufacturers would have caught on to the added versatility it would give to make motherboards that could have two expansion cards fitted.

GrimDanfango wrote: There are so many ITX cases out now that have two expansion slots, you'd think motherboard manufacturers would have caught on to the added versatility it would give to make motherboards that could have two expansion cards fitted.

The two slots on the case are for a dual height graphics card. I don't know anyone that has done a build without a card that is dual height recently. It seems that there are people either using integrated or dual height cards. What are you needing another expansion slot for?

Since not all mITX cases are built for 2 slots, you can't possibly expect that on a motherboard. That kind of defeats the purpose of standards, you know? As DrkSide pointed out, the 2 slots on the cases that have them are for two-tall GPUs, or maybe you could get creative - single-height graphics + a slot bracket that plugs into an empty USB header, to get extra USB ports.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.

GrimDanfango wrote: There are so many ITX cases out now that have two expansion slots, you'd think motherboard manufacturers would have caught on to the added versatility it would give to make motherboards that could have two expansion cards fitted.

The two slots on the case are for a dual height graphics card. I don't know anyone that has done a build without a card that is dual height recently. It seems that there are people either using integrated or dual height cards. What are you needing another expansion slot for?

Hehe, specialized rigs for my visual effects pipeline... workstations with low-end single-slot discrete GeForce cards, but Infiniband host adapter cards as well.A bit too much of a niche requirement to expect to be able to build that kind of thing into an SFF enclosure I suspect.

Last edited by GrimDanfango on Tue Mar 05, 2013 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

derFunkenstein wrote:If you want 2 slots on your motherboard, what you want is DTX.

Since not all mITX cases are built for 2 slots, you can't possibly expect that on a motherboard. That kind of defeats the purpose of standards, you know? As DrkSide pointed out, the 2 slots on the cases that have them are for two-tall GPUs, or maybe you could get creative - single-height graphics + a slot bracket that plugs into an empty USB header, to get extra USB ports.

Yeah, I said about Mini-DTX... that *is* the standard for a 2-slot type mITX motherboard.Wasn't really the focus anyway, I gave up on that build idea in the end.

Well I don't think people are ready to get away from tower designs (besides SFF and/or HTPC builds). That means that a case will be one regular-sized ATX board + PSU high, the same ATX board + a 3.5" HDD wide, and PSU thick (plus some extra so nothing is right up against the chassis). Being contrained to that layout means that there's always a chunk of space for 5.25" drives.

So in order to eliminate that space, you have to get away from the tower layout, or at least move things around, which can still be weird since most PSUs are going to have the plug on the same face as the motherboard and video card. This can also result in a thicker case, which seems to counter the desire to decrease overall volume.

Forunately, smaller components seem to be growing more popular (there are several new ITX reviews on this site). That means that you'll see people becoming more comfortable with different layouts, and hopefully we'll see more modest case volumes.

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"

My sound card uses a 5.25" drive bay for the front control panel (also works in 3.5" but without RCA input), and I need another 3.5" bay for the all-in-one reader. (Of which I'd only use SD and MicroSD, but the MicroSD reader broke, unfortunately.) I suppose I can get by without either, since I've fed up with the static from the front port's headphone jack that I can't seem to get rid of.

Perhaps it's worth exploring the smaller form factors (for me in the future anyways) that do away with these arguably unnecessary drive bays. It'd be nice if 99% of graphics cards that are of any use didn't require full width and a ton of length space though.

superjawes wrote:Well I don't think people are ready to get away from tower designs (besides SFF and/or HTPC builds). That means that a case will be one regular-sized ATX board + PSU high, the same ATX board + a 3.5" HDD wide, and PSU thick (plus some extra so nothing is right up against the chassis). Being contrained to that layout means that there's always a chunk of space for 5.25" drives.

So in order to eliminate that space, you have to get away from the tower layout, or at least move things around, which can still be weird since most PSUs are going to have the plug on the same face as the motherboard and video card. This can also result in a thicker case, which seems to counter the desire to decrease overall volume.

Forunately, smaller components seem to be growing more popular (there are several new ITX reviews on this site). That means that you'll see people becoming more comfortable with different layouts, and hopefully we'll see more modest case volumes.

That seems to be the conventional logic, the tower layout seems to require that everything is given a huge extra void down the front of the case, and a minimum of 200mm wide... but some HTPC designs, like Silverstone's GD08, happily float the hard drive bays out over the motherboard area, where you can pick-and-choose which parts to block off with drives, or which to leave empty for long graphics cards... and even this lovely compact case throws away some space on 2x5.25 bays.Why can't a case design like that work perfectly well in a tower? Ditch the optical bays, float the thinner 3.5 bays over the motherboard, and reduce the width and depth.

The issue I've found is, there's plenty of tiny cases that try to use the space intelligently, but the moment you step into ATX territory, they all give up and just make everything fat, towering behemoths... They could make a standard ATX system with plenty of 3.5" bays so much more compact if they'd just give it a try.

While I agree more than two optical drive bays is a waste, I still have use for optical drives. I think a lot of people are like me and have older copies of software, games in my case, that you need a optical drive to install and even need a drive for the disk to be present before the program will run. Some of my games I could get from Steam or other provider and not need a disk at all. But, why pay for a game again when I already have a copy on hand? Waste of money as far as I am concerned. I go back and play games over again a few years down the road. I am not one to toss something out after one or two run throughs.

On a side note, I would like to add to your rant about drive bays with my own about USB ports. Why are they still putting USB 2 ports in cases when USB 3 is better and is backwards compatible with USB 2? Do away with the USB 2 ports totally and move to USB 3 makes more sense to me.

5.25" > 3.5", so you can use those 'useless' optical bays for 3.5" hard drives. Don't look at them as optical drive bays, but rather as flexible bays that can be used for HDDs or optical drives or specialty expansion parts. There are inexpensive, non-hot swap drive mounts that will fit 3-in-2 or 4-in-3 3.5"-in-5.25" bays.

As others have said, for mATX and larger form factors there's naturally going to be space left over for 5.25" drive bays. Less width requires compromises of some kind, such as no large coolers, or odd ATX-size PSU mounting. There are some non-tower form factor mATX cases with one or no optical drives, and some media-style ATX cases don't have any either, but they are specialty-type cases imo.

As for this...

Why can't a case design like that work perfectly well in a tower? Ditch the optical bays, float the thinner 3.5 bays over the motherboard, and reduce the width and depth.

Um, so you want a 12-19" tall case (mATX-ATX motherboard) that's what...3" wide? That wouldn't be very stable standing up on end and laying it down you get an HTPC/desktop style case, some of which don't have optical bays! So, unsurprisingly, what you're asking for has already been done.

I also suspect there's another reason 5.25" bays are still around - the Asian DIY market. They are huge on DIY there, not just in computers but in electronics in general, and with more widespread copyright infringement there optical drives are still used more. External optical drives are much slower than internal and also a bit more expensive. On a personal note, I will be pissed when optical drives really die off because I won't pay for inferior compressed media so ripping my media for personal use is important.

Last edited by MadManOriginal on Tue Mar 05, 2013 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Khali wrote:On a side note, I would like to add to your rant about drive bays with my own about USB ports. Why are they still putting USB 2 ports in cases when USB 3 is better and is backwards compatible with USB 2? Do away with the USB 2 ports totally and move to USB 3 makes more sense to me.

I agree... not that I actually have anything that uses USB3 yet, but it does seem pointless. Or rather it seems pointless having "2x USB3, 12xUSB2"... I'd rather just have 4xUSB3. I really struggle to imagine any situation where I'd be using more than 4 rear and 2 front usb ports simultaneously.

Also... VGA ports on laptops... why, whyyyeee?! So fat and chunky, so not-used-by-anyone-for-10-years

MadManOriginal wrote:5.25" > 3.5", so you can use those 'useless' optical bays for 3.5" hard drives. Don't look at them as optical drive bays, but rather as flexible bays that can be used for HDDs or optical drives or specialty expansion parts. There are inexpensive, non-hot swap drive mounts that will fit 3-in-2 or 4-in-3 3.5"-in-5.25" bays.

As others have said, for mATX and larger form factors there's naturally going to be space left over for 5.25" drive bays. Less width requires compromises of some kind, such as no large coolers, or odd ATX-size PSU mounting. There are some non-tower form factor mATX cases with one or no optical drives, and some media-style ATX cases don't have any either, but they are specialty-type cases imo.

This is the issue I take... the accepted assumption seems to be that, well, you're bound to have all this left-over empty space, that's just how it plays out... and any case that tries to make intelligent use of space, and use exactly as much as it needs to fit the components of a fairly typical build, gets labeled as a crazy experimental outlier, only suitable for very particular speciality builds.

I'm suggesting that an entirely typical neat-and-tidy ATX-PSU, ATX-Mobo, 8-drive array file server could easily make far better use of space than the vast majority of tower cases. The only necessary limitation would be on cooler height, but the fact that the vast majority of coolers require 180mm+ height clearance is just another pointlessly wasteful convention that's come about... one single component sets the mandatory minimum width of almost all tower cases.There are a select few fantastically capable coolers <=140mm.

MadManOriginal wrote:I also suspect there's another reason 5.25" bays are still around - the Asian DIY market. They are huge on DIY there, not just in computers but in electronics in general, and with more widespread copyright infringement there optical drives are still used more. External optical drives are much slower than internal and also a bit more expensive. On a personal note, I will be pissed when optical drives really die off because I won't pay for inferior compressed media so ripping my media for personal use is important.

I'm certainly not suggesting *all* cases drop optical bays. Of course there are plenty of usage scenarios where people will need them. I just don't get why almost-all cases have to have them.

With things getting smaller I can see where we might end up going back to computer cases laid out horizontally like the original PC from IBM years ago. Room for more drives was the driving force behind the vertical tower PC case design. With the introduction of SSD's, which are a lot smaller than a HDD, it should not be too hard to fit plenty of storage drives in a horizontal case. Only issue might be with cooling but I'm sure that can be worked out since a lot of the smaller cases today make due with just one exhaust fan as it is. Would probably be a good place to use liquid cooling options. Just think we could all go back to the days of sitting our monitor on top of the PC again.

Why can't a case design like that work perfectly well in a tower? Ditch the optical bays, float the thinner 3.5 bays over the motherboard, and reduce the width and depth.

Um, so you want a 12-19" tall case (mATX-ATX motherboard) that's what...3" wide? That wouldn't be very stable standing up on end and laying it down you get an HTPC/desktop style case, some of which don't have optical bays! So, unsurprisingly, what you're asking for has already been done.

150mm seems reasonable to me... the width of the ATX PSU standard... 102mm width for the standard hard drive, with 48mm left for the big swathe of most motherboards that, even with RAM installed, tops out at requiring about 30mm height clearance.Yet almost all towers are 200mm+... and that seems to be dictacted solely by the need to be compatible with the most colossal tower coolers on earth, and optical drive bays.

Again, not suggesting that all cases should adhere to this... I just don't understand why the overwhelming majority have to cater to the largest possible components, leaving a tiny minority of designs that actually make some intelligent use of space.

Why can't a case design like that work perfectly well in a tower? Ditch the optical bays, float the thinner 3.5 bays over the motherboard, and reduce the width and depth.

Um, so you want a 12-19" tall case (mATX-ATX motherboard) that's what...3" wide? That wouldn't be very stable standing up on end and laying it down you get an HTPC/desktop style case, some of which don't have optical bays! So, unsurprisingly, what you're asking for has already been done.

150mm seems reasonable to me... the width of the ATX PSU standard... 102mm width for the standard hard drive, with 48mm left for the big swathe of most motherboards that, even with RAM installed, tops out at requiring about 30mm height clearance.Yet almost all towers are 200mm+... and that seems to be dictacted solely by the need to be compatible with the most colossal tower coolers on earth, and optical drive bays.

Again, not suggesting that all cases should adhere to this... I just don't understand why the overwhelming majority have to cater to the largest possible components, leaving a tiny minority of designs that actually make some intelligent use of space.

So you say 150mm is reasonable because it's the width of an ATX PSU, but that optical drive bays need to go away because they make cases too wide. I think you should look up the width of optical drives, and then rename your rant to 'about wide cases' rather than 'about optical drive bays'.

MadManOriginal wrote:So you say 150mm is reasonable because it's the width of an ATX PSU, but that optical drive bays need to go away because they make cases too wide. I think you should look up the width of optical drives, and then rename your rant to 'about wide cases' rather than 'about optical drive bays'.

I know they're the same width... my concern isn't over them making cases wider, although they do need more width than a PSU for mounting brackets and screws. My concern is that they're a waste of space, whatever their dimensions, and that it's a very rare build that needs more than one, and in a lot of instances they could be done away with entirely, yet they're still a predominant feature in almost all cases.

There are any number of reasons why so few cases seem to make more effective use of space, optical drive bays are just the most conspicuously large element of case design that could be done away with in cases that are aiming to maximize space usage in as small a footprint as possible, and yet even in cases that make notable efforts to fit as much as possible into as small a space as possible, the almost always seem to feel compelled to include at least one.

Again, I'm not advocating scrapping them altogether... I just think it would be a safe enough bet to design more cases without them. There's definitely a sizable and growing market for builds that drop optical drives entirely.

Well then, you spin me right round baby right round...back to something I already said:

MadManOriginal wrote:5.25" > 3.5", so you can use those 'useless' optical bays for 3.5" hard drives. Don't look at them as optical drive bays, but rather as flexible bays that can be used for HDDs or optical drives or specialty expansion parts. There are inexpensive, non-hot swap drive mounts that will fit 3-in-2 or 4-in-3 3.5"-in-5.25" bays.

If you are unable to see 5.25" bays as just another area to use inside a case rather than having to be for optical drives, that's your problem.

A funny thing happens when designing a generally rectangular enclosure for standard components that are generally rectangular - you end up with a similar overall volume, just arranged differently. The way to reduce volume in a meaningful way is to reduce the dimensions of the largest components, for computers that is the motherboard for anything above ITX. (Even ITX motherboards have larger dimensions than most other parts though, just not by much.) Using that case you pictured and praised as an example: it might look like great and efficient use of space but guess what...it's 18.2" deep. There's nothing special about a case with that depth.

Last edited by MadManOriginal on Tue Mar 05, 2013 8:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MadManOriginal wrote:Well then, you spin me right round baby right round...back to something I already said:

MadManOriginal wrote:5.25" > 3.5", so you can use those 'useless' optical bays for 3.5" hard drives. Don't look at them as optical drive bays, but rather as flexible bays that can be used for HDDs or optical drives or specialty expansion parts. There are inexpensive, non-hot swap drive mounts that will fit 3-in-2 or 4-in-3 3.5"-in-5.25" bays.

If you are unable to see 5.25" bays as just another area to use inside a case rather than having to be for optical drives, that's your problem.

A funny thing happens when designing a generally rectangular enclosure for standard components that are generally rectangular - you end up with a similar overall volume, just arranged differently. The way to reduce volume in a meaningful way is to reduce the dimensions of the largest components, for computers that is the motherboard for anything above IXT. (Even ITX motherboards have larger dimensions than most other parts though, just not by much.) Using that case you pictured and praised as an example: it might look like great and efficient use of space but guess what...it's 18.2" deep. There's nothing special about a case with that depth.

I'm not saying that space can't be utilized at all, I know bays can be converted, but it amounts to padding out a smaller device to fill a large space, when it could just have the correct sized bay, positioned more intelligently, without the waste.

The coolermaster case makes good use of space, not excellent, but better than most. Yes, it's about as deep as a lot of the shallower ATX cases, but it's a lot shorter and thinner than most, without sacrificing much besides what ends up being empty air in most cases. It can still fit an optical bay, five hard drives, a full ATX motherboard, an ATX PSU, a moderately long graphics card, other expansion cards, and quite tall CPU coolers. This is with one fairly simple, not especially aggressively-space-conserving design. Seems to me it would be an ideal candidate for there to be more of, but I've not come across another design quite like it.

If you take a look at the latest Dell T5600 workstations - they're incredibly compact cases for what they contain, ~415x170x470mm. That contains (at top spec) an enormous EATX motherboard, with two 150W CPUs, top end graphics cards, plenty of expansion room, two hard drives, one optical bay and one slim bay. If they'd done away with the optical bays it could have easily managed 4 hard drives.That's not device sizes dictating the basic dimensions of something, that's very clever use of space, it's something along the lines of half the volume of their previous generation of workstations, with more advanced hardware inside. To some extent that's because they discarded an often-unneeded stack of drive bays, and simply provided a second model, the T7600, that has more bays if required.

I'm trying to point out that the vast majority of cases cater only for the catch-all largest superset of requirements, and cram in masses of bays, often 5.25 bays, which in the majority of builds go mostly unused.

I'm just ranting about there not being a few more attempts made to tailor cases to specific, but still highly common usage scenarios, rather than the current state of affairs where the moment you hit ATX size, almost all designs just throw efficient use-of-space considerations out the window.

Last edited by GrimDanfango on Tue Mar 05, 2013 8:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yup, as I mentioned, Silverstone seem to be one of the few who actually seem to try and make best use of space in almost all of their designs. The SG09 isn't for me, I can't say I like the way they've fattened it up and tucked all the hard drives away from the airflow to stew in their own heat (and it's a bit ugly ), but it's certainly an interesting design, that will certainly sell well for the various builds that will work nicely with it.

Edit - Also, the recently announced SG10, which is practically the same case I think, has a far prettier front bezel